Despite union efforts to target retailers like Walmart, businesses are reporting record Black Friday traffic  the biggest sign yet that the unions are out of touch with the American people. Starting at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Walmart put its products on Black Friday sale, sparking a run to the stores and earning the stores record sales.

I was mainly looking for very good ammo deals...saw none. The only other deal I thought was good was a Sharp 70” Aquos for $1798....my wife would have killed me was the only thing that stopped me, for sure.

Confidential to Walmart: technology is your friend. Next time, at the stores targeted by the union with picketers, try a flash-mob sale on Air Jordans, etc., and see if the picketers can deal with the resulting feeding frenzy. I'll bet even the meanest union thug would wet his pants.

The only other deal I thought was good was a Sharp 70 Aquos for $1798....my wife would have killed me was the only thing that stopped me, for sure.

I was disturbed to see a series of stories about Emerson flat-panel TVs purchased on Black Friday a year ago from Wal*Mart that not only died, but were covered by a warranty that required the customer to pay $70-100 to have the TV "diagnosed". The last story of the series noted that some manufacturers allegedly had short production runs of downgraded versions of their products specifically for the Black Friday crowd: these are not the same products they ship year round.

So, that makes two reasons not to shop on Black Friday: being trampled by the herd, and finding that the "screaming bargains" could well be a come-on.

7
posted on 11/23/2012 10:57:35 AM PST
by asinclair
(Christmas, the gift-getting time of year...)

I went shopping at Wal-mart for groceries today and the place was DEAD! The parking lot was all but empty! I asked a clerk about it and she told me that they had such huge crowds in the wee small hours of the morning that it was bedlam then and she figures that everyone in the world showed up so early there wasn’t much need to get there later! I loved it. Both the empty store (for my own benefit!) and the fact that the so-called strike failed.

The rest of us have had our livelihoods affected negatively, in some cases dramatically so, by this ideology and vengeance driven administration. Our savings, our home values, our retirement accounts, etc., all affected negatively by this administration. So I’m supposed to care about the grievances of a group of people who voted this jerk in, for a second term, because they thought it would help them? Yes, they have families. So do we. The divisions in the country now run very deep, thanks to the divide and conquer crowd that make up the bulk of the Democrat party these days.

Walmart often hires the unhireable and pays them what they are worth. Walmart gives their workers a chance to achieve some sense of self-worth and responsibility. The unions want to take that away because if Walmart paid union wages and benefits, the union members would take those jobs away from the lesser qualified Walmart workers.

The retail workers at Walmart are not the real target of the union organizers. It’s the truck drivers and warehouse worker jobs that the unions want. The retail end is just the most visible, so that’s where they make their play and their whine about buying American. The warehouse workers don’t care where Walmart buys their products, they just want their cut of the profits.

My wife went last night at 8PM just to check things out, and she could barely find a parking place(I believe it took her a half hour). The place was jam PACKED. This, being in a ‘two stoplight’ town out nearly in the middle of nowhere.

Just got back from Placerville Walmart, spent 30 minutes argueing with Union thugs, I said “ we don’t want you In Placerville” I was reinforced by the people going into the store shopping. 100 protester mostly Seiu and some other Sacramento thug unions. They are idiots. One woman said ‘YOU MIGHT AS WELL RAPE THE PEOPLE”. I was speechless. I hate unions nothing but thugs.

29
posted on 11/23/2012 12:48:22 PM PST
by crazydad
(Obamamohamed is a traitor)

The only problem I see with this is now that they see how much money they made by opening at 8 o’clock. Next year they may say well dang 8 o’clock made this much so why not 6 o’clock and on and on until they are opened all day long.

At 11:30 PM I was preparing to sleep off a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, having spent the day with some close family friends. Rushing out to a store to buy a flat-screen TV was the last thing on my mind.

I didn’t go to WalMart. However I did go to Best Buy, Target and a few others. By 11:30 the Best Buy line went form the store at one end of the strip mall to the other end and around the building. I came back after a few lesser advertise store and waited.

In line multiple people mention they had been at the East Windsor, CT WalMart earlier. The palace was packed. The WalMart lot was full and the adjacent supermarket lot was full. I took a quick look on Google Maps and it appears WM has 650+ spaces and the supermarket 150-175.(http://goo.gl/maps/6EZAT)

In addition next door is a closed movie theater(the rectangular building next door with the half circle on the front) anywhere from 50-75% of the spaces on the side of the building closest to WM were taken.

forget the union thug stuff. This is about billionaires and corporations continuing to chip away at our real family values that have been decimated and at the cost of the USA.

Instead of supporting the family being together with Walmart and Target support selling the Chinese Communist crap that destroyed America.

I have no sympathy for Walmart or Target and if the employees wish to oppose it, I have no problem with it. We need to regain the USA values back and remake families and for Christ, instead of for these billionaires who think missing out on having more Americans going further into debt for their profits, is wrong for America.

Christmas needs turned into a time when Americans help others instead of helping Walmart.

38
posted on 11/23/2012 3:54:04 PM PST
by apoliticalone
(Honest govt. that operates in the interest of US sovereignty and the people, not global $$$)

IF you are working at WalMart & you have a ‘family’, you need either a permanent time out from having kids or you need some serious education in order to make more income.

WAL MART is NOT a CAREER, people!!!

It is a place for young people to learn how to work with people, show up on time, problem solve without a 24/7/365 nanny on your heels, and how to keep your personal hygiene & demeanor up to standards which are acceptable for your employer. It is aplace for such young people to learn how having a gppd work ethic & initiative will lead to better things.

It is a place for a retired person to supplement their Social Security benefits up to, but not to exceed, the amount that would trigger them losing some of their SS benefits. For a retired widow or widower, this also gives them a reason to get up every day, keep up their grooming, and have pleasant interaction with others—some the same age & some lots younger in a safe atmosphere. No seedy bars & dangerous locations & bar fights.

Some of the ‘20 somethings’ we see at Wal-Mart are literally doing their internship’ for a career in marketing. They will not be in that store for the rest of their lives.

But—stocking shelves with diapers & Pine-Sol & baked beans is not a CAREER for a person who wishs to have or already has a family.

IF you MUST do this job for now—spend every waking moment you can finding a vocation you would like to do instead & get the education that will allow you to do that. Keep your spending to a minimum so that you can keep getting more education.

You really don’t ‘need’ those $100 tickets to a concert or to the Oakland Raiders game. You need to focus and get yourself a leg up from where you are. You don’t ‘need’ a new car every 3 years with a 100 watt stereo system & $5000 worth of 20” wheels. A car is TRANSPORTAION!!! Nothing else. I have put over 405,000 miles myself on the 2 vehicles I own, which I bought used. They still run just fine.

It is NOT the responsibility of ANY EMPLOYER to keep handing you more and more hourly pay just because you don’t think you are ‘being paid enough’. There is no such thing as ‘enough’. A ‘Living Wage’ for Donald Trump or a ‘living wage’ for a 22 year old who already has 4 kids because of her bad choices are 2 entirely different things.

I don’t care one little bit about your 4 kids & your prior poor choices. I will hire a person for the opening I have, based upon the competition in my area for that same job. I won’t pay 2 or 3 or 6 or 8 dollars an hour more just because YOU think YOU need a ‘living wage’.

Wages or Salaries are paid based upon the skills involved, the energy the employee puts into the job & the value the employer gets out of each individual employee. I can keep explaining this——but I CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT FOR YOU. You have to step up and understand how the world works for yourself. If you have been handed everything by over-indulgent parents or a government that thinks you need to be kept in financial slavery—then you are about to have some really harsh lessons. Those lessons you will try to escape, but they will attach themselves to you & someday- perhaps at age 55 or so, you might just get a clue.

If this week had been Social Security day for me, I would have gone to Wal Mart today, just to argue with the fools who are trying to raise havoc at the door of the only job they now have & what is most likely, the only job they are qualified to have. You would think that watching a union shut down Hostess bakeries would give some of them a clue—but they seem to have doubled-down with their demands. Their behavior will not set well with those who shop happily at Wal-Mart.

I am just one of many people my age who didn’t like the dead end jobs I was qualified to do with a very good high school education. ( I didn’t skip classes & was on the honor roll—contrary to most students today.) I went back to college with night classes at age 29, while I was working at least 40 hours a week, and some weeks, 48 hours. I took accounting classes—5 hours in the classroom a week with a ratio of 5 to 1, homework to classroom hours facing me. I went to my job, went to school, went home & did homework for 4 years. I didn’t have a social life. I ended up with a grade point average of 4.0. For those of you in Rio Linda (thanks, Rush), that means I had the best grades available. No One can ever take that away from me. When I am asked about my qualifications to do the work I do now, I can tell them what classes I took and what grades I got. That is permanent. Not even Obama can take that away from me!!!!

PS: In the 70’s I worked as a grocery cashier in So Calif for a major chain near Hollywood & Vine.

That store NEVER closed-—they didn’t even have a key for the front door!!!!

My first week there, I went to my dinner break & I locked up my cash register, as I had done at the other stores I had worked in for this chain. I got back from dinner & got yelled at!!! Who told me to lock the register? I said—all my prior managers!!!

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